


Burning Me Alive

by drpepperdiva91



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Declarations Of Love, Greg is supportive, John is heartbroken, John is mildly suicidal, M/M, One Shot, Post-Reichenbach, drunk!John, drunk!lestrade, sherlock is "dead", so many angsts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-03
Updated: 2014-08-03
Packaged: 2018-02-11 13:13:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,862
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2069553
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/drpepperdiva91/pseuds/drpepperdiva91
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which John and Greg get drunk after Sherlock's funeral, and John confesses his love for Sherlock. </p><p>John's POV.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Burning Me Alive

**Author's Note:**

> This story came from a prompt from 221bye on tumblr, which was shared with gay-detective on tumblr, where I found it and subsequently gave birth to this.
> 
> The prompt was as follows:  
> "John getting piss drunk with Greg after Sherlock's death and confessing his love for Sherlock and staring into nothing whilst fidgeting with his glass."

Your funeral was lovely, as far as funerals go. Mycroft was there, as overbearing and emotionally constipated as ever, but your patents weren’t, which surprised me. I guess I’ll never meet the people who raised the most important man in my life. Oh, well. It seems I have more regrets than not, these days. It’s something I’m getting used to.

What I’m not getting used to is the emptiness of the flat. The quiet isn’t what bothers me- you did warn me before I moved in that you often don’t speak for days on end. It’s no more quiet here than it was when you were in the throws of one of your sulks. But it’s still. The stillness is what gives it away, keeps me from being able to pretend you’re laying on the couch or hunched over your microscope. It’s like the air in here died along with you, and I’m living in a vacuum. 

I wish I’d died that day, and I think that’s why Greg hasn’t left me alone. He can see it written all over my face. Lord knows, he could use the company too. He might not have lost the love of his life, but it was close. You were like a son to him, you know. Well, I suppose you don’t know, actually. You couldn’t even remember the man’s first name. I’m talking about Lestrade, if you haven’t figured it out by now.

Of course you haven’t figured it out by now. You’re dead. And I’m either much more drunk than I thought I was, or losing my mind. Perhaps both.

It’s funny, how I can be so honest to the you in my head, but I could never say these things to the real you- the living you. I could never tell you, in reality, that you were the love of my life. Maybe if I had, you never would have left. Wouldn’t have been driven to this if I could have shown you that it was possible for someone to love you for who you are.

People kill themselves because they hate themselves, or feel worthless, or feel like there is no hope, or like they are unloveable. There are so many reasons. Sometimes they just want to escape the nightmares. But I know you didn’t jump off of that roof because you were a  _fraud_. That’s absurd, Sherlock, and you know it. I wish I had seen the signs. They’re always there, and I just ignored them. I’ve been wracking my mind, trying to figure out why you did it. What drove you to this point. What tipped you over the proverbial edge; but I keep coming up blank. You were the same person in the days leading up to your suicide that you’ve always been. 

Mycroft told me, at your funeral, that I couldn’t have prevented this, that it’s not my fault, and that I’ll be alright. The man can read me like an open book, so he must have known I’m blaming myself. But I can’t help but feel like he was trying to tell me something. The tone of his voice was odd. I have so many questions about this past week, but the more I think of them, the more I feel as if I’m going mad.

Maybe I’m already mad. 

Greg tells me I’m not crazy, just grieving. But I think I took him by surprise earlier, with something I said. To be honest, it took me a bit by surprise as well. It was the first time I’d said it out loud, and the fact that the first time I said it was to Greg after your funeral, and not to you, lying together in bed, is really what made me lose it.

Greg drove me to the funeral, since I was refusing all offers of transportation from Mycroft, and I’m in no condition to drive. Afterwards, instead of dropping me off in front of Baker Street, he parked the car and came upstairs with me. I almost said something, wanting to be alone with my grief and my gun, but decided against it. I know I shouldn’t be alone right now, and Greg probably knows I don’t have the strength to ask for company. He’s a good friend, in that way. He can read people’s emotions the way you read dirt on shoes, or pet hair on trousers. 

He sat down heavily on the couch, while I went to the kitchen, grabbed an old, terribly expensive bottle of scotch you nicked from Mycroft at some point, and two glasses. I sat down next to him, and poured both of us a generous helping of liquor. 

"This is great," he said after taking a rather large swallow. 

"Mhm," I answered. "It’s Mycroft’s. Sherlock stole it from him after a case a couple months ago." I smiled at the memory for a split second, before I remembered I'd just came from your funeral. The happy memories of you slice me like a sharp knife- I don't even realize it hurts until the damage is already done. I exhaled sharply, and dropped my head down to look at the scotch. I swirled it around in the glass a bit, wondering what you'd say about that. What would you have deduced from the velocity at which I swirled my alcohol in my tumbler after my best friend's funeral?

You'd probably deduce that I loved him. That he was far more than a friend to me. 

I was suddenly caught adrift in a sea of emotions that I don't know how to describe. There was one moment, when you were still alive, but I knew you would be gone soon- the moment when you were falling through the air, your coat billowing out behind you like some joke of a parachute, the last moment you were still present in this world. In that moment, I felt nothing. I had no thoughts. I know, I know, you don't think I ever have any thoughts. But I promise, I never would have made it out of med school with a completely empty skull. 

As soon as you hit the pavement, it was as if I felt every emotion that I had ever felt in my life, ten times as intensely as I'd ever felt them, all at once. It's been like that ever since. I can barely breathe sometimes, with the weight of it all pressing in on me. I'm being crushed under it. I feel like I'm suffocating in my own grief.

I don't say this to Greg though. Instead, I down my drink, he downs his, and I pour us another round. An hour later, the bottle of scotch was nearly empty and neither of us could see straight. The alcohol warms my stomach and cheeks, and Greg is flushed as well. Greg grinned at me, in his easy-going lopsided way that he only does when he's pissed, and said the word that broke the both of us.

"Sentiment."

We smile at each other, both thinking how completely absurd you would think us, getting pissed alone in the flat of our dead friend after his funeral. I'm not sure which one of us started crying first, but before I could really figure out what was happening, we were sobbing together, holding on to each other's shoulders as if that would keep us from falling apart completely. Sentiment, Sherlock. You were right all along.

Greg managed to get a hold of himself in a couple minutes, but I couldn't stop. I hadn't cried since you fell. Hadn't let myself, because I knew that if I started, I'd never be able to stop. For a little while there, it seemed like I was right, even though I know, medically, eventually I'd dehydrate myself enough that the tears would cease to exist. My emotions were completely out of my control, which I'd like to attribute to my level of inebriation, but I think a breakdown like this was bound to happen sooner or later. In all honesty, I'm glad it happened when Greg was there. I don't know what I might've done if I'd been alone.

My chest burned almost as badly as my stomach, and I realized that Greg's arms were around me, and he was talking to me, quietly and calmly, the way cops speak when they're trying to talk down jumpers. Maybe he could have talked you down, Sherlock. Maybe you should have called him. 

"Shhh, John. It's alright. It's alright to cry, but you've got to keep breathing while you do it, okay, mate? In and out. Shh, shh," he was telling me, like I was a five year old crying over a dead goldfish. But he was right, I did need to keep breathing, which was something I hadn't been paying much mind to, judging by the way my lungs felt when I finally inhaled a gulp of air. I managed to start breathing on my own, and forced myself to dial down the hysteria enough for Greg to feel like he could release me from his grip. We sat side by side on the couch again, me staring into my empty glass, and Greg staring at me, his hand still on my shoulder. 

I'm not sure why I said it- maybe as an explanation for my outburst, maybe just to remind myself, maybe to prove that I could admit it even if it was too late. 

"I love him," I said to the glass, unable to meet Greg's eyes. I was ashamed, and he knew. I was ashamed that I'd never told you, that I let you die without knowing you were loved. You died thinking you were alone, because I couldn't get over my own pride. My own fears. I was selfish, and you paid for that with your life. People don't just kill themselves if they think someone loves them as fiercely as I love you. At least, I don't think they do. I stopped wanting to kill myself after I'd met you, you know. Now that you're gone, I'm not so sure it's a terrible option. It was a good enough solution for you, apparently.

Greg took the glass from my hands and set it on the table. "I think that's enough liquor for one night, mate," he said. I'm not sure if he believed me, considering how drunk we both were. I doubt either of us will remember this in the morning. It doesn't matter, really.

It doesn't matter, because now you'll never know. I could shout it from the rooftops, and it wouldn't make any difference. I am so sorry, Sherlock. I am so full of regret, I don't know how I could possibly have room to feel anything else. But I love you so much, still, even though you're gone, that it burns inside me and keeps me awake at night. When I met you, it was as if you lit a fire inside me that had long burnt out. Now, you're burning me alive from beyond the grave.

I will always be sorry.

And I will never stop loving you.


End file.
